Feather After // Chapter 47 // Chocolate And Zips

Aria's POV

"I can't. Can't you see I'm wearing a dress?" I moved my bottom side to side to emphasize that I was wearing a gown, and I no way could climb on the motorcycle. He looked at me and raised his eyebrow.

"There is zip," he grabbed my left shoulder blade.

"There is no zip, except the back one. And I'm no way going to remove this goddamn dress; that too in a cold night for a horny man like you, who wrote poetry about sex on a bill slip!"

He smirked, "There is a zip on the side of the dress, two zips on the side and one on the back. This design is why your mom is so famous in the fashion industry, the zip on the left," he pulled me toward him, and from one side he bent down. I heard a zipper being open and then I looked at him. The dress was open from one side till my knees. I could easily climb on the motorcycle now.

I can do it, I told myself. I walked to the other side of the motorcycle and looked at Ignatius, he nodded as he held on to the throttle and he tilted the bike in my direction. I don't know how I managed to get my ass on that thing.

"Are you ready?" He pushed his helmet to me and continued to speak, "wear this; I don't want something to happen to your expensive ass. Your mother will sue me."

I put that helmet on and then pulled it off. He killed the engine that he had started while I was putting it on. "What the hell happened, princess?"

"This smells."

"Obviously it does. Put it on before I wear the helmet and crash the bike somewhere," he started the engine again.

"You won't, plus you're the one who guts those expensive flowers," I poked his left shoulder.

He looked at me through the rare view mirror and glared at me. Well, I was flattered. "Just leave it alone, okay?"

"Okay."

I didn't want to pull his strings anymore. What if he did crash the god damn bike? I was going to die. I tried not to inhale in the helmet but it was not possible. It smelled of sweat and it reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, fresh cigarettes. I tried not to smell it and looked around. Everything seemed to be sprinting back. Everything seemed to be alive and nice. It was beautiful. I could feel the air on my legs and it tingled. I felt weird around Ignatius.

He was everything that I wasn't. I had never sat on a bike before. I couldn't wait to see Nanna's expression when she'll see me getting off this metal thing. She would definitely give me a very hard time. I kept my hands to my self. I didn't want to touch him. It set fire on my body and I wasn't ready for it.

We sped through the traffic. We bunked red lights and when I looked into the rare view mirror, I saw Ignatius's hair flowing back in the wind. He was not wearing his lip ring anymore. His eyes were crunched in the wind. Suddenly his eye fell in me and I looked in the opposite direction. He pulled his bike on the side of the road and the engine slowly stopped. He pulled the bike and out his foot on the pavement of the road.

"Climb down princess," he said and smirked, "we're here."

I put both my hands of his shoulder and shifted my weight to the left side of the bike. I put my left foot on the floor and then bought the foot down as well. I removed the helmet and took a deep breath. I would have died if I would have kept wearing that thing around my head.

He got down and then pulled the keys out. "Move fast, come on follow me!" He walked forward and I tried to match my pace with his. It was downtown Seattle, that part of Seattle that Nanna had warned me about. I was here for the first time. He turned to look at me and then he put his hand in his pocket. He stopped in front of a shop and when I looked up, what I saw beautiful. There was a huge board which read, Vers' Bakery. It was written in italics in pink lettering. 'Where dreams come true,' it was written below it.

He opened the door and we got in, it was dark. He switched on the lights and I gasped. It was beautiful. The bakery was a long and spacious one. It was colored in a light pastel color. The dock of the bakery was filled with blackboards and the edges of the bakery blackboards were covered in small designs of a cupcake. There were lights in the cupcake design. The kitchen behind the dock was clean and beautiful. There was a glass shelf below the hung blackboards and it was empty.

"This is my mum's bakery," he clarified as he moved along the space. There were high chairs and table and sofa seats along the corner of the place. There was a rack which was lined with books, "this is where I started actually reading, she taught me how to."

I didn't say anything just nodded. He never talked about himself and when he did, I kept shut. I didn't want to break his trace if he wanted to tell me stuff he could otherwise it was okay. I wouldn't have liked it if he would have forced things out of me. I know I wouldn't have. I just looked around. It was so very different. The downtown part of the city was almost the opposite of what this place was.

"So, princess, what will you like to have?" I took a deep breath. princess. He bowed his head and smiled at me. It was a real smile, a genuine one.

"What can you offer?" I looked at him. He crunched his eyebrow up and smiled.

"You see that menu there?" I nodded, "we can make anything you want! Name it and we'll make it. And if you don't want to work, you could just grab a book from there and I'll do the rest. Just look at the board there," He pointed at the same blackboards which were scribbled with different items.

"What do you specialize in, sir?"

"I'm good with my hands, so ask me anything," he smirked.

Did he have to bring that in everything that he said? Oh god.

"What about chocolate croissants?" I tried to change the topic because I didn't want to discuss that again. It was embarrassing and Ignatius knew about it, but he liked talking about it anyway.

"Follow me, chocolate croissant it is!" He walked into the kitchen and bent down. He pulled out an apron and wore it over his neck and tied the knots. It was pastel white in color and Ignatius was written on it with black color.

"Well you are just going to watch and I'll walk you through it, so there you go!" He threw an apron and opened s metal door, he walked inside the pantry and motioned me to follow him.

"This is how we're going to start okay? This is the dough," he opened the refrigerator and pulled out a big bowl. He pulled some dough out and shoved the rest inside before closing the refrigerator.

"So you get the ready-made stuff?" He had already put the dough he had pulled out on a table and he was beating it with his hand.

"No, please, you're not a real baker if you do that, do you want to know Hudson's recipe? It's a secret so keep it to your self okay?"

I nodded.

"First we heat 1/2 cup of the milk to 115-degrees Fahrenheit, and then we stir in the yeast until dissolved. Then we add 1 tablespoon of the flour. We let it sit for about 5 minutes until it's foamy and then in a medium bowl, we mix the sugar, remaining 1 cup and 1 tablespoon of the flour, and salt. We generally add the foamy yeast to the mixture and knead until smooth with a wooden spoon, about 3-4 minutes. When the dough gets sticky, we know we're gone. Mum gets the feeling like she just knows that it was done. For me, I'm still a novice so yeah, we refrigerate it overnight."

"That's great, you know this by your heart, I mean I have never cooked as suck, so I don't know. Nanna says that it's a good stress buster but never tried it so," I watched him work in the pantry. He swiftly moved from place to another. He was at ease with himself. He was so different from what he was at school. He was just amazing and I was having a hard time believing it that he was the same arrogant bastard that I had slapped that day.

"It's not done it, we have to work hard to achieve this little piece of art here," he looked at the dough in his hand, "shall I continue?"

When he saw me nodding he started speaking again. I just wanted to close my eyes and wanted to hear him speak.

"We take some butter and remove the dough from the fridge. We spread some flour on the surface" he moved his hand along the rail, "and roll the dough out into a six by ten inches rectangle. That's the standard size croissant we sell at the Vers'. Mum says that the six inches side should be closest to you, that is; the person who is making it," he looked into my eyes and continued, "we then spread all 6 tablespoons of the butter evenly over the rectangle, but leave about 1cm of a border on all edges. Fold the dough like a letter like you know fold the top one-third to the middle.

Fold the bottom third up to the middle also. Roll the dough back into a six by ten Inches rectangle. Cover and refrigerate the rectangle of dough for 2 hours. Remove the dough from the fridge after two hours, fold it like a letter again, and then roll back out to a six by ten inches rectangle. Place it back in the fridge for two hours. Repeat this two more times for a total of four folds, refrigerating for 2 hours between each fold and roll. After the last rollout, refrigerate the dough overnight." He looked at me, he took a deep Breath.

"Well the last step is finally here, all you have to do it, spread this thing on the table, like this and then cut small pieces, now as I do watch closely."

On one side of each rectangle, he placed a tablespoon of chocolate chunks. "Have a bite," and he shoved a chocolate slice in my mouth. As I licked my lips, he rolled the small rectangular pieces from the side and did the same thing with every piece. He placed the rolls on a baking sheet lined with a parchment paper and brushed it with the egg yolk. He then took the same baking plate and pulled inside the oven, "they will be done in like 10 minutes," he dusted his apron.

"How was the chocolate?"

"It was great, you made it?"

"Yes, we did thank-you. We almost do everything here. These chocolate croissants were the first thing mum made for us like it was beautiful. When they bought me here, I refused to eat anything," he moved around and pulled two chairs out.

"So I guess you had a rough childhood?" I sat on the chair and looked at him. His eyes lost the twinkle again. I wish I haven't said what I did. I'm sorry Ignatius.

"No it was bearable, nothing that bad."

Before I could say anything else; the bell rang. Ignatius stood up and to my surprise, he went the other way.

"Aria, listen to me carefully, if you hear gunshots just run from the back door, and don't look back okay?"

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